Richard Lyman

RICHARD LYMAN. IN THE SILENCE OF SCORPIONS

A LOST 1971 POET'S PRESS CHAPBOOK.

Lyman Cover Art

The first edition of this book was a hand-stapled chapbook, published in 1971 as one of the earliest productions of The Poet’s Press. The text was completely re-set and minor corrections of spelling and punctuation were made. Many of the poems are intentionally ambiguous, so punctuation has only been added in a few places for clarity.

Richard Lyman (1925-2003) was the pseudonym of Richard Bush-Brown. He was active in the Greenwich Village poetry scene in the 1960s and early 1970s. The poet was the son of Harold Bush-Brown (1888-1983), a Harvard-trained architect and author of the 1976 book, Beaux Arts to Bauhaus and Beyond: An Architect’s Perspective. His mother, Marjorie Conant Bush-Brown (1885-1978), was an artist and portrait painter, and both his paternal grandparents were artists. He was estranged from his parents, who disapproved of his youthful avowal of Communism. Only the fact of his birth is stated on web pages about his parents.

Bush-Brown attended Black Mountain College. His poetry is overshadowed by his reverence for Dylan Thomas. His poem, “The leopard came into the world” was his most memorable work, and his readings of it impressed listeners at New York poetry readings. On the strength of that poem, The Poet’s Press persuaded Bush-Brown to assemble the manuscript for this chapbook.

No other details are known about the poet, who vanished from the Manhattan poetry scene, and so far as we know, he published no other books. He continued to live in Manhattan, was seen riding the subway to and from some Wall Street job, and died on October 18, 2003.

40 pp, 6 x 9 inches. PDF format. $2.99. Published May 2019, corrected and updated December 2025. This is the 243rd publication of The Poet’s Press.

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Version 1.1 Updated January 12, 2026.